“A MEMORY” is a solo exhibition of new work by Lana Crooks opened July 7th @ Stranger Factory (in Main Gallery) and exhibits thru July 30, 2017. Scroll thru for a select few images of the gallery show, and head to circusposterus.com now to view artwork available for your purchasing pleasures!

Ever a delight witnessing the art of Lana Crooks, where soft create hard, and the resulting aesthetic weaves a sense of fantasy and warped reality to the viewer, methinks, And while I’ve not had the fortune to see these in person (I do not know if I could ever recover from the “wonder”, I suspect :p), they look simply divine in online images, IMHO.

"The work for "A Memory" is inspired by victorian jewelry, mourning practices and hair work. For this exhibit I have learned traditional hair work using instructional manuals from the 1870's and have used a number of materials (even my own hair) to emulate the victorian memorials. Creating wool skeletons and silk flowers encrusted in glass, jet, onyx and other semi precious beads to create modern memento mori specimens."

ARTIST BIO: "Lana Crooks loves the antique, the creepy, the cute and the mysterious. Constructing creatures from fabrics and found objects, she is a purveyor of faux specimens and soft curiosities that are a blend of science and fantasy. Sought after for her pattern-making abilities, she frequently teams up with other artists to breathe three dimensional life into their illustrations, earning her two Designer Toy Awards. She enjoys drawing from real specimens in dusty back rooms of Chicago's natural history museums but, on an average day, you can find her in the studio surrounded by skulls, old books, aging fabrics, and a cat named Tanuki."